Ride on Time

Chapter 118

"Who is this guy?" Mitsuo asked when he came to a picture of a geekish guy standing between Shri and Shruti.
Shruti looked at the picture and instantly frowned. "My oldest brother."
"Oh yeah, Mr Sufyan mentioned him," Mitsuo nodded. "Does he live here too? I haven't actually seen him."
"He moved out when he got married a few weeks after Madhavi was born," Shruti sighed. "He..." she sighed. "He wasn't the best brother, quite the opposite actually."
"What did he do?" Mitsuo prodded further.
"He abandoned us when we needed him most, Mitsuo, he abandoned all of us," Shruti scowled. "All for that witch... she isn't even beautiful, ugly inside and out."
Shree swallowed her saliva. "He sounds like a horrible person..."
"He is," Shruti nodded. "I don't know who is to blame, he or his wife. Both of them are always trying to steal limelight when everyone already know the bad they've done." She snorted slightly. "Is it logical to apply baby powder on wet paint to make it dry faster?"
The two of them shook their heads, confused.
"Apparently, he thought so when varnishing that chair," Shruti pointed to a wooden armchair at the side. "See? That's how stupid he is."
Mitsuo turned back to the wannabe-cool face on the album and frowned. The face did look stupid, but not cunning or evil.
"Maybe she manipulated him by some way," Mitsuo suggested. "You know, because he's a little simple-minded?"
Shruti let out a humourless snort. "That may be so, but he is a very manipulative person as well, Mitsuo. He'd talk as if he's the smartest person in the world." A teardrop escaped her eye. "He stopped me from trying to pull Shri out of the car, saying it was dangerous. The driver seat was still intact, I could see. Who knows, Shri would've survived if he let me break him out.
"I don't think he even felt grieved, he was even laughing with his friends during the funeral," Shruti went on. "If he did, would he have abandoned our family for her? I don't even know what he saw in her, she's such a heartless person who didn't even like the sight of a joyous baby like Madhavi at the time. I was still in confinement when he married her."
"That means... he married at home?" Shree asked. "If not how you can go?"
Shruti shook her head. "No. I didn't go for his wedding. Everyone had to leave so Tyler was the only one left with me. I was crying the whole time, he kept telling me not to since I was still weak after giving birth and all. But did Sid see that? He merely brushed me off. I wasn't even a bridesmaid, despite being his only sister."
Shree leaned towards Mitsuo a little to explain. "For Indians, groom's sister must be the bridesmaid while the bride's brother must be the groomsman."
Mitsuo nodded. "That must've been painful."
"It was," Shruti agreed. She wiped her tears off and shook her head. "I don't wanna talk about that whacko now."

They bade goodbye to Shruti and her family and started driving off.
"What if Misao wasn't the only one who was murdered?" Mitsuo suddenly said as they descended the hill. "Like... what if Shri Mohan was killed too?"
"I thought he died in an accident," Vasu said, poking his head between the two front seats. "Like you said you saw it in your dream, right?"
"Yes," Mitsuo nodded. "His car was bashed by a lorry. From the opposite direction."
"Doesn't sound very scheming," Shree shrugged, carefully driving down the steep downhill. "It happens sometimes, especially in two-way streets. Can happen in Jalan Penchala, near Jalan Kilang there."
"On the highway?" Mitsuo pointed out. "Like it's literally on the highway, I'm sure it was a highway at the time too. How on earth did a lorry come up there? Accidentally?"
"There are weirdos, I guess," Vasu shrugged.
"But how that feller went inside Federal Highway?" Shree frowned. "Like... drunk also how he end up there?"
They started thinking of the possibilities before Vasu finally piped up. "Akka, not back then the Jalan Timur two way ah? One go, one come."
Shree gasped. "Yeah! Yong Shook Lin also before different, right?"
"What is Yong Shook Lin? Where's Jalan Timur?" Mitsuo asked suddenly.
"This is Jalan Timur," Vasu said, pointing a hand at the road.
"Then what's Yong Shock Lin?"
"It's Yong Shook Lin, it's someone's name and a street in PJ State," Shree sighed. "You been there, what. Jalan Yong Shook Lin? You ate burger all there before?"
"Burger?" Mitsuo thought in surprise but eventually realised. "Oh! That place!"
"Yes that's Jalan Yong Shook Lin," Vasu sighed. "Now where were we?"
"Jalan Timur," Shree said, nearing a traffic light. "I think the lorry weirdo must've entered through there." She pointed to a junction where cars exited. "This leads directly back towards Asia Jaya, where... you know..."
"That must've been it, then," Mitsuo sighed. "We have our method, but who did it and why?"
"A jealous idiot," Vasu chimed in. "Out of... jealousy."
"Nice one, Vasu," Shree snorted. "But can you define jealous idiot?"
"No," Vasu regretfully said. "Maybe it's the neighbour guy. He was this Shri Mohan feller's bestie, what."
"Nah, it couldn't have been him," Mitsuo shook his head. "He seems genuinely sad at losing him, even at the brink of crying when I brought up the subject the other day."
"When did this happen?" Vasu asked in surprise. "Have you been sneaking around with our neighbour?"
Shree groaned. "Don't ask. This feller bought Taufufah for us and just because we weren't home, he went next door to chat with the neighbour."
"Oh so that's where the taufufah came from," Vasu realised, nodding slowly. "So much happened the one day I chose to go to school."
"Vasu, got one more," Shree smirked, eyeing Mitsuo. "Mitsuo ate idli with chopstick at the hawker stall yesterday."
Mitsuo groaned as Vasu burst into laughter. "Nika, why?"
"You ate idli with chopstick ah?!" Vasu giggled. "Oh my gosh!"
Mitsuo quickly changed the subject by telling him of Wang's second son eating idli at the same restaurant.

***

Shree turned her laptop on and started looking up Misao, seeing if there was anything about her on the internet. Nothing really popped up, most of the sites were about other Misaos, but not Hara Misao. She didn't give up and kept going, and at last found a Japanese article written on the 24th of December 1998.
She couldn't understand a word of it but knew it must've been the correct one. Shree tried to translate the article but couldn't since it was a page on itself and not typed out directly, sort of like a PDF but a different format that she didn't recognise. But Shree didn't give up. She highlighted the entire page with her cursor and then hit right-click, translating the entire thing to English. Instantly, a small box appeared at the top of her screen, showing the words roughly translated in English. It wasn't perfect but it was enough for Shree to understand.
Hara Misao, 24, was found buried under thick snow beneath the Shirakawa Canal, Gion, Higashiyama-ku. It is suggested that her untimely death was a result of heartbroken suicide, but her friend, Endo Kumiko, suspects otherwise. 'It may have been an accident, the blizzard was terrible last night. She may have been thrown over by the wind,' Mr. Miss. Endo suggested.

Shree smirked slightly, seeing how the term san wasn't properly translated. She knew that Kumiko was a woman and not a man and shrugged at the small error before reading on.

Hara Misao used to work as a Geisha at the Japanese Restaurant Okiya in Gion up until yesterday. Mother Tanaka mentioned that Misao had been through a lot of stress last night and even lashed out. She suspects that it was indeed a suicide.

The rest of the article revealed nothing of note. They mentioned that Misao was originally from Tokyo and that her parents, Emiko and Tetsuo Hara, refused to be interviewed during Misao's funeral.
Imagining all of that scenarios brought tears to Shree's eyes, especially when thinking about Misao's parents. As if losing their daughter wasn't bad enough, they had to endure reporters swarming around their daughter's funeral. And what made it even worse was the fact that Misao might indeed be her.
"Akka?" Vasu called, exiting his room to find her sitting at the dining table with her laptop. "What happen? Why you crying and sitting?"
Shree wiped her tears and pointed to the screen of her computer. Vasu looked at it and frowned, unable to read even a line of Japanese characters.
"What's that? All in Japanese," Vasu pointed a hand at the screen.
Shree sniffed and pointed at the little box on the upper right corner of the screen. Vasu read whatever's on there, even using the mouse to scroll down to read the whole thing.
"Is this that Shri Mohan feller's girlfriend?" Vasu asked when he finished.
"Yeah," Shree nodded. "This was written when she died."
"So bad the reporters," Vasu shook his head. "Went and torture her parents during her funeral some more."
"That's why," Shree agreed. "They said she suicide because of stress and that she lash out. Wonder what happened..."
"Send this to Mitsuo and see if got anything written in original Japanese that was translated out," Vasu suggested. "He can read, what. We only cannot."
Shree nodded and copied the link, sending it to her phone via WhatsApp before using her phone to send it to Mitsuo via Instagram. It was funny how she had to use so many communication methods just to get one link out to him due to not having his phone number.